


And Baby Makes Three

by lizandletdie



Series: Mr. Good Mood [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, there's some vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9367133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizandletdie/pseuds/lizandletdie
Summary: Belle gets an unexpected (and not entirely wanted) surprise. Fortunately, Joshua is there to help calm her down.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tinuviel-undomiel said: Mr. Good Mood: Belle finds out she's pregnant and is too scared to tell Neal or Gold.

Belle was sitting on the edge of the tub with a line of pregnancy tests next to her and another in her hand. This last one still had thirty seconds left on it, but the little blue plus sign had already shown up and she didn’t think it was going to go away just because she was staring at it hard enough. Jesus Christ, what the hell was she going to do? They hadn’t even finished moving all her things from her old place to his house yet and she was still looking for someone to sublease it. It wasn’t actually a great time for her to get knocked up, but six pregnancy tests probably weren’t lying to her. Unless it was a bad batch, but then she was left with the longest case of food poisoning known to man or a stomach virus that also affected her periods.

What _was_ she going to do? She hadn’t even been thinking about having kids with him. She wasn’t necessarily against the idea per se, but his son was only a couple years younger than her and between that and the age gap, she’d pretty much assumed he was done with the baby thing. And she was fine with that. She had a career she really loved and a boyfriend who could afford to take her travelling and that was pretty much all she’d ever really been sure she needed for a happy life. Except now it was going to have a baby in it.

Her head was spinning trying to work out what she even wanted to do. She knew she should figure that out before she told him anything, but there were so many variables. She didn’t want to be a single mother, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to terminate it, and she wasn’t even sure what he’d want to do. There were so many decisions and the two people she usually discussed these sorts of things with were Joshua and Neal, and how could she possibly tell either one of them that her birth control had failed? All three of their lives were going to be changed irrevocably by this and it was terrifying as hell.

She must have stayed in the bathroom longer than she thought she had, or else Joshua came home from work early, because the next thing she knew she heard the sound of the cane in the bedroom. Of course she’d had to do this in the master suite, and now she didn’t have time to throw away her half dozen pregnancy tests without him seeing them. She couldn’t tell him until she knew what she wanted and she couldn’t leave the bathroom without telling him. She was just about the only woman in the world who could manage to trap herself in a bathroom to work out the next eighteen years of her life. And what was she going to do if she _did_ want the baby but he didn’t? That was a terrifyingly real prospect. He was supposed to be done with raising children and now here she was with an occupied uterus. What if he didn’t want her anymore once he knew about the baby? She was feeling sick again and luckily the toilet was right there for her to vomit in.

“Belle?” he heard her calling from the other side of the door. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she shouted between retches. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? That doesn’t sound good.”

She couldn’t reply, because the smell of the vomit just triggered her morning sickness again and she heard him say he was coming in but if she tried to talk again she was just going to puke on herself.

She finally got herself under control enough to look at him, and he seemed pretty shocked by the tableau he’d just witnessed. Which, in all fairness, he had just walked in on his girlfriend throwing up in the bathroom with five pregnancy tests on the side of the tub and a sixth clutched in her hand, so staring at her like that was a pretty understandable reaction.

“So…” he said slowly. “I take it there’s something you wanted to tell me.”

She nodded and held out the test that was in her hand and he took it gingerly, staring at the results window for a long time before he looked back at her again.

“How did you even manage six of them?”

“I drank a lot of water,” she replied, settling on the floor next to the tub before wiping her mouth on her sleeve. She was going to have to throw this sweater out anyway.

He flipped the lid down on the toilet and sat down on it quietly. She wished he’d say something, but she’d had three minutes per pregnancy test plus the drive to and from the pharmacy and about three bottles of water to accept it, so he probably deserved a few more minutes before she pressed him for a reaction.

“Are you okay?” he asked at last, reaching out and stroking her hair back off her face.

“I guess,” she said. “It’s...big. It’s a real big thing to deal with.”

“It is. Are you happy?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said because it was the honest-to-goodness truth. She just didn’t know at all. “Are you upset?”

“Why would I be?”

“Well, I can’t imagine you planned on this.”

“No, but to be honest, I didn’t plan on Neal, either. And he turned out fine.”

She couldn’t help but laugh a little bit at that, but she was so upset that it came out more as a sob.

“You’re not angry?”

“Oh sweetheart, of course not. It’s going to be an adjustment, but it’s not like it changes anything with us, does it?”

She shook her head _no_ because of course it didn’t. She’d been stupid and paranoid and now she was crying again god dammit.

“Are you _sure_ you’re okay?” he asked her and when she shook her head _no_ again he tugged her arm to pull her up into his lap and wrapped his arms around her waist affectionately. “It’s okay, sweetheart, honest. There’s no need to cry.”

She nodded and rested her head on his shoulder and sobbed, letting him soothe her until she was out of tears and feeling a lot more rational even though her eyes burned.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I’m really not sure why I was crying.”

“Don’t apologize, you’re right it’s a big thing to have happen when you’re not expecting it, but whatever you want to do we’ll do, okay? And you don’t have to decide right now, we can work it out when you’re ready.”

Just having him say it calmed her down significantly, and she just felt silly now for letting her imagination get the best of her.

“Are you really going to be okay no matter what?” she asked, rubbing her eyes on the sleeve she hadn’t wiped her mouth on. “Even if we keep it?”

“Of course I am. I love you and I’ll love our child if and when we have one.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, and felt her body relax again. She was going to be okay. She was in love with a really fantastic man who could afford to take her traveling, she had the job she’d always wanted, and she was going to have a baby. It was all going to be okay.

“I’d planned to wait for Valentine’s day for this, but I guess now is a good time,” he said, tilting her chin towards him and then brushing a piece of hair behind her ear. “Will you marry me?”

Somehow, her brain was having trouble processing this piece of news after everything else that had happened today, so the only reply she could offer was to blurt out “ _what?_ ”

“Will you marry me?” he repeated with a shy smile.

“Are you serious?”

“I am. It’s not just because of the baby, if that’s what you’re thinking. I have a ring and everything in my nightstand. I just...I was waiting for the perfect time.”

“And this was it?” she asked, smiling now in spite of herself. “With me all puffy and gross and pregnant and crying on you?”

He shrugged and kissed her nose affectionately.

“With you beautiful and scared and needing me? Yeah. It was the perfect time to ask.”

How could she say no to that? She was having his baby, and they were going to get married.

“Can you ask me again after I’ve taken a shower?” she said finally. “I’d like to be a little less pukey when I get engaged. And I think I wanna see the ring first. You know, to make sure I really want to.”

He laughed out loud and somehow it all felt so much better when he did. The timing was crazy, but they were stupidly in love and that was really all that mattered.

“Anything you want,” he said. “You take a nice, long bath and I’ll order dinner and a dozen roses and we can figure everything else out after that. How does Chinese sound?”

She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck and he held her so close she was sure she’d fuse into him soon.

“It all sounds absolutely perfect,” she said honestly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY FLUFFAPALOOZA EVERYBODY!!

By the time she was out of the shower, Belle was feeling a million times better. She was done crying about this and was feeling a lot more like she was ready to talk about it. Joshua was a great boyfriend, and he wanted to marry her. It was really tempting to think he felt pressured into it by the pregnancy, but he said that he had a ring which meant he’d been thinking about it pretty seriously before any of this happened. She was going to marry him. Oh, damn she was going to marry him – that was the second most exciting and terrifying thing she’d ever had happen to her and she couldn’t wait to see him again and say _yes_. And then work out how they were going to handle raising a child together.

She paused in front of the mirror in her bra and panties and rubbed her hand across her lower belly idly. She was growing a person in there. This was really happening, wasn’t it? They were going to do this for real – they were going to have a baby. It wasn’t as scary anymore now that she’d had some time to adjust to it and now that Joshua knew. It was still absolutely terrifying, but not quite as terrifying as the alternatives. She was really in best case scenario for an unplanned pregnancy, all things considered.

She dried her hair and got dressed in clean clothes and made her way downstairs. The lights were dimmed, but there was a field of candles in the dining room. She hadn’t even known they had all these candles – how the hell had he managed to light them all without burning the place down? It was like something out of a fairy tale, and there was Joshua standing by the table waiting for her. He hadn’t been kidding about ordering her flowers, either. God, she was ridiculously lucky and she was going to have to kiss him.

“What’s all this?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her boyfriend – fiance’s – neck and leaned into him. He was really the best.

“I told you I wanted the right moment,” he said with a grin, tapping a finger on the tip of her nose playfully before he leaned in and kissed her lips. “It seemed appropriate.”

“I cannot believe you went to all this trouble for Chinese takeout.”

He shrugged and smiled and kissed her again, and her stomach did a flip when he stepped back and helped her to her chair. He hadn’t gone to all that trouble for the takeout, he’d done it for her. It was the most romantic takeout dinner she’d ever had. Belle hadn’t quite realized how hungry she was, but she’d done a lot of throwing up that day from morning sickness and anxiety, and she knew she was eating in the least ladylike way possible but it was impossible to slow down. When she looked up again, he was glancing up at her and there was a little velvet jewelry box sitting on the table between them. She knew this was coming and she knew exactly what it was, but it still made her heart skip a few beats while she worked up the nerve to reach out and take it. 

She had no idea what to say once she finally opened the box. The part of her brain that remembered working her way through college and sharing an apartment with Neal started going nuts at the sight of a bigger diamond than she’d ever thought of owning in her life. The ring itself was rose gold with rows of little diamonds running diagonally in rows around the outside of the band and also wreathing the large center stone. 

“You weren’t kidding,” she said once her mind was able to do more than make a low buzzing noise at the thought of how much money this had to have cost. 

“Do you like it?” he asked a little nervously and she realized that she must look as shocked as she felt.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s...it’s _beautiful_.”

He smiled in relief, and she went back to staring at the ring itself in its black velvet box. This is it. She was going to be engaged. She was going to start a family with this man. It was such a big step, but somehow she wasn’t scared anymore. It was all starting to feel _right_.

“Belle?” he said softly, interrupting her daydreaming and causing her to look up at him quickly. “You can put it on if you want.”

Oh! She hadn’t even said _yes_ yet, and she was still halfway convinced she was going to break the ring if she touched it. She was completely sure that it cost more money than her car did, and somehow it felt strange to know that it was hers now if she wanted it. And she did want it, but she wanted it to be from him.

“Ask me again?” she said, setting the box on the table between them. “I never got to say yes earlier.”

Joshua smiled and pulled the ring out of the box, holding it delicately between his thumb and forefinger.

“You’re going to have to forgive me for not getting on bended knee, sweetheart,” he said apologetically and before he could say anything else, she stood up and walked around to where he was sitting. He smiled up at her and took her left hand in his and kissed it softly before looking back at her and continuing his proposal. “Will you marry me, Belle?” he asked simply, and somehow the simplicity of it set her crying again.

She fanned her face, trying to keep the tears from falling down her cheeks but it was hopeless, and when she looked down he was smiling at her bemusedly and she couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous she was being.

“Yes,” she finally blurted out. “Let’s get married.”

He slid the ring onto her finger, and instead of letting her go he pulled her back down into his lap again and kissed her until she finally stopped crying in happiness. It was the happiest she’d ever been in her entire life.

Finally, when she had been thoroughly kissed and cuddled until she could scarcely stand it anymore, a thought finally occurred to her.

“Hey honey?” she said from where her head was resting on his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Dibs on not telling Neal he’s going to be a big brother.”


End file.
